Σελήνη

Selēnē
Greek · noun
variants Σελάνα : Selana , Σελάννα : Selanna , Σεμνή : Semnē
Edited by: Thomas Peeters , Michael Zellmann-Rohrer
Last edited: 2025-02-03

Meanings
Literal translation
Moon
Categories
luminary
planet
Related Lemmata 19

1. Moon

1.a Moon luminary, planet

Ἥλιος, Ἀφροδίτη Ὑδροχόῳ, Σελήνη, Ζεὺς Τοξότῃ, Κρόνος Λέοντι, Ἑρμῆς Αἰγοκέρωτι, Ἄρης, ὡροσκόπος Ζυγῷ.

‘The Sun, Venus (were) in Aquarius; the Moon, Jupiter in Sagittarius; Saturn in Leo; Mercury in Capricorn; Mars, the Ascendant in Libra.’

— Vettius Valens 5.6.112

Genre: astrological treatise Date: 2nd century CE

(GH L 122,I,22)

Ἐν μὲν γαῖαν ἔτευξ’, ἐν δ’ οὐρανόν, ἐν δὲ θάλασσαν, ἠέλιόν τ’ ἀκάμαντα σελήνην τε πλήθουσαν, ἐν δὲ τὰ τείρεα πάντα, τά τ’ οὐρανὸς ἐστεφάνωται, Πληϊάδας θ’ Ὑάδας τε τό τε σθένος Ὠρίωνος Ἄρκτόν θ’, ἣν καὶ Ἄμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν, ἥ τ’ αὐτοῦ στρέφεται καί τ’ Ὠρίωνα δοκεύει, οἴη δ’ ἄμμορός ἐστι λοετρῶν Ὠκεανοῖο.

‘On it he produced the earth, and on it the sky, and on it the sea, and the untiring sun and the full moon, and on it all the constellations, that the sky is wreathed with: the Pleiades as well as the Hyades as well as the might of Orion as well as the Bear, which they call Wagon as additional name, and which revolves around itself and keeps an eye on Orion, and which alone is without share of baths in Ocean.’

— Homer, Iliad 18.483-489

Genre: epic Date: 8th century BCE

Homer. 1920. Homeri Opera in five volumes, eds. D.B. Monro & T.W. Allen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα καὶ Πληΐαδες· μέσαι δὲ νύκτες, παρὰ δ’ ἔρχετ’ ὤρα, ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω.

‘Set are the moon and Pleiades; and it is midnight, and time passes, and I sleep alone.’

— Sappho, Fragment 168B

Genre: lyric poetry Date: 7th-6th century BCE

Sappho. 1990. Greek Lyric, 1. Sappho and Alcaeus, ed. D.A. Campbell, 2nd edition. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 172

The attribution of this fragment to Sappho is uncertain.

†σίν· τὴν σελήνην. ββῶν†

‘Sin: the Moon. Babylonians.’

— Hesychius σ 674

Genre: lexicon Provenance: Alexandria Date: 4th-6th century CE

Hesychius Alexandrinus. 2005. Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, Vol. 3 (Pi - Sigma), ed. P.A. Hansen. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. 292

The manuscript contains σεμνήν instead of σελήνην.


Cite this entry
APA (7th)
Peeters, T., & Zellmann-Rohrer, M. (2025). Σελήνη (Lemma #535). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/535/

Chicago (Author-Date)
Peeters, T., & Zellmann-Rohrer, M. (2025). Σελήνη (Lemma #535). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/535/

MLA (9th)
Peeters, T., & Zellmann-Rohrer, M. (2025). Σελήνη (Lemma #535). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/535/

Harvard
Peeters, T. and Zellmann-Rohrer, M. (2025) Σελήνη (Lemma #535), The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. Available at: https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/535/ (Accessed: July 4, 2026).

BibTeX
@misc{zodiac535,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2026-07-04]},
	author = {Peeters, Thomas and Zellmann-Rohrer, Michael},
	year = {2025},
	title = {Σελήνη ({Lemma} #535)},
	url = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/535/},
	howpublished = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/535/},
}